MADRASAS, EXTREMISM AND THE MILITARY
29 July 2002
As amended on 15 July 2005 by a footnoted change to the Executive Summary, and new footnotes 6 and 6a.
ICG Asia Report N°36 Islamabad/Brussels
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS... i
I. INTRODUCTION ... 1
II. BACKGROUND ... 4
A. SACREDVSMODERN:ABRIEFHISTORY ...4
B. BRITISHRULE:DEOBANDANDOTHERRESPONSES...5
C. STRUGGLEWITHTHESTATE ...6
III. THE MADRASA BOOM... 9
A. THEFAÇADEOFISLAMISATION...10
B. ZIA'SMADRASAREFORM...10
C. JIHADANDSECTARIANISM:THESCHOOLCONNECTION...11
D. MODERNISTSGOMILITANT ...11
E. THERISEOFJIHADICULTURE ...13
F. FINANCES...14
IV. MADRASAS UNDER CIVILIAN RULE ... 16
A. MILITANCYANDBENAZIRBHUTTO ...16
B. SECTARIANCONFLICTANDNAWAZSHARIF ...17
V. THE MUSHARRAF PLAN ... 19
A. DEALINGWITHTHEJIHADIS...20
B. FOREIGNERSINMADRASAS...22
C. MODELMADRASAS ...23
D. NEWMADRASALAW?...25
E. PACKAGEOFINCENTIVES ...26
F. WHOCONTROLSREFORMS?...27
VI. CONCLUSION ... 28
APPENDICES A. MAP OF PAKISTAN...32
B. GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS...33
C. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP...35
D. ICGREPORTS AND BRIEFING PAPERS...36
E. ICGBOARD MEMBERS...40
ICG Asia Report N°36 29 July 2002
PAKISTAN: MADRASAS, EXTREMISM AND THE MILITARY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In its new role as key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, Pakistan's military government has toned down many policies that previously fostered militancy and religious extremism within the country and internationally. Action against the Taliban, al-Qaeda and home-grown sectarian terrorists are examples. But the military's confrontation with its former religious allies is likely, at best, a short-term response compelled by circumstances and foreign pressure.
It is doubtful whether the military government has the intent or the will to set Pakistani society on a sustainable course that would lead to political pluralism and religious tolerance. On a key test – reform of madrasas, Pakistani religious schools that breed extremism of many hues – the military government thus far has acted weakly.
Madrasas provide free religious education, boarding and lodging and are essentially schools for the poor.
Over one and a half million children attend madrasas.* These seminaries run on public philanthropy and produce indoctrinated clergymen of various Muslim sects. Some sections of the more orthodox Muslim sects have been radicalised by state sponsored exposure to jihad, first in Afghanistan, then in Kashmir. However, the madrasa problem goes beyond militancy. Students at more than 10,000 seminaries are being trained in theory, for service in the religious sector. But their constrained worldview, lack of
* This sentence, inserted on 15 July 2005, replaces the original line "About a third of all children in Pakistan in education attend madrasas", which was based on a mistaken calculation, as identified in Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, Tristan Zajonc, "Religious School Enrollment in Pakistan: A Look at the Data", Working Paper Series 3521, World Bank, 1 February 2005. Slight consequential editorial amendments, reflecting this change, are made elsewhere in the text; see also footnotes 6 and 6a below.
modern civic education and poverty make them a destabilising factor in Pakistani society. For all these reasons, they are also susceptible to romantic notions of sectarian and international jihads, which promise instant salvation.
The Musharraf government has pledged, as many previous Pakistani governments have done, to change the status of madrasas and integrate them into the formal education sector. It has also pledged to reform the madrasa system as part of its anti-terrorism actions in fulfilment of UN Security Council Resolution 1373.
However, these pledges have not been backed by decisive action or a credible plan to remake the system within a reasonable timeframe.
A madrasa reform law is in the works that would regulate the schools. It would provide for changes in the curriculum, registration and monitoring of finances but even the name of the draft – the Deeni Madaris (Voluntary Registration and Regulation) Ordinance 2002 – gives some sense of the lack of commitment to reform.
The bill does not envisage real intervention in the madrasa system because the clergy is opposed.
Madrasas will instead be asked to submit to regulation voluntarily, and the law proposes no mechanism of enforcement or punishments for violations. Madrasas would simply be asked to comply with the new curriculum.
Alongside this very gentle prodding, the government is offering madrasas some carrots for good behaviour:
free Islamic and modern textbooks and other rewards, including salaries for teachers. Most madrasas have shrugged off both aspects of the plan and have said they will resist any attempts to secularise education.
The religious organisations already banned by the government continue to run schools and to produce militant literature.
Both the clergy and independent observers see the government's plans as measures aimed at assuaging international opinion. In fact, the government's apparent policy shift represents not real change but rather continuity of the military's alliance with the United States and its patron-client relationship with the Pakistani clergy.
U.S. support gives international legitimacy to the military's role in Pakistani politics. A madrasa sector the autonomy of which remains untouched and that is not forced to reform is unlikely to confront the military. On the contrary, the clergy remains a vocal supporter of a politically dominant military and its India policy. This explains why the government's madrasa reforms are cosmetic and lack substance, legal muscle or an intent to institutionalise long-term change.
Madrasas have a long history in Pakistan and in Muslim societies generally. They serve socially important purposes, and it is reasonable for a government to seek to modernise and adapt rather than eliminate them. International assistance to Pakistani education, especially from Western donors, however, should focus heavily on rebuilding a secular system that has been allowed to decay for three decades. Any international assistance for the government's madrasa reform project should be closely tied to proof that it represents a genuine commitment to promote moderate, modern education.
Musharraf's clampdown on foreigners linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda shows that international pressure can work. It is what will determine if and when the government will enact tangible madrasa reform.
International acceptance of the military's domestic manoeuvres in exchange for support in the war on terrorism risks more extremism in the not distant future that will be hard to contain. Wavering by important international actors, especially the U.S., will not only increase extremist threats to Pakistan but eventually also undermine global security and stability.
RECOMMENDATIONS To The Government Of Pakistan:
1. Establish a madrasa regulatory authority immediately, to be headed by the interior minister, that should:
(a) carry out a comprehensive survey of the madrasa sector for purposes of mandatory registration and classification within six months;
(b) assist the Pakistan Madrasa Education Board in implementing and monitoring curriculum and financing reforms;
(c) coordinate efforts of the various government departments involved in the reform process; and
(d) work as the focal point for liaison with the clergy, donors, law-enforcing agencies and international organisations.
2. Institute curriculum reforms for madrasas within six months that ensure:
(a) vocational training programs are included;
(b) more time is allotted for modern subjects in the new teaching schedule; and
(c) recognition of madrasa certificates and degrees is conditional upon adherence to the new teaching regime.
3. Immediately close all madrasas affiliated with banned militant organisations and prosecute their leaders under existing criminal laws if they are involved in incitement to violence.
4. Require all madrasas at the time of registration to:
(a) publish annual income, expenditure and audit reports;
(b) declare their assets and sources of funding; and
(c) disassociate from any militant activity or group.
5. Create a nation-wide Financial Intelligence Unit, as a subsidiary of the banking regulatory authority, to prevent money laundering in the formal banking sector and to curb the hundi system and other informal financial transactions.
6. Keep strict tabs on foreign students who seek admission to Pakistani madrasas and permit their enrolment only if such religious education is not available in their home countries or they have otherwise been carefully screened by both their home authorities and the appropriate Pakistani government authorities.
7. Ensure that madrasa reform is not confined to urban areas but also covers small towns and villages.
To International Donors:
8. Hold the Pakistani government to its commitments to madrasa reform, and in particular in particular urge it to:
(a) close madrasas linked to banned extremist groups;
(b) establish a regulatory authority under the interior minister with sufficient powers to overcome clerical resistance;
(c) institute mandatory rather than voluntary registration, curriculum reform and financial control mechanisms;
(d) end involvement of intelligence agencies in the madrasa sector; and
(e) implement parliamentary oversight as soon as possible.
9. Provide financial assistance to help Pakistan upgrade its secular education sector at all levels, with emphasis on vocational training.
10. Provide financial assistance to government programs to reform the madrasa education sector but only if the government closes madrasas affiliated with banned groups, makes it obligatory for all madrasas to disclose their sources of income and declare dissociation from any militant activity or group, and otherwise carries out the reforms described above. Funding for reform projects should be suspended if the government fails to do so. International financial institutions providing, or intending to provide, financial assistance for madrasa reform should also make their grants conditional on the above criteria.
11. Recognising that some donors may have legal or constitutional difficulties with direct support of religious education, they should consider supporting a number of specific projects, including:
(a) training new madrasa teachers to teach a wider range of secular subjects;
(b) producing madrasa textbooks for modern subjects; and
(c) supporting civil society monitoring of government performance in madrasa reform and on other education issues.
To The United Kingdom And Saudi Arabia And The Other Gulf States:
12. Publicly identify charities and NGOs suspected of links with militants.
To The G-8 Countries, Especially The United Kingdom And United States:
13. Implement fully the eight special anti-terrorism financing recommendations of the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Money Laundering and urge Pakistan to adopt legislation that meets these standards.
14. Launch, with the help of domestic Islamic organisations, a public awareness campaign to dissuade expatriate Muslims from funding jihadi madrasas and to dispel misperceptions that Islamic education per se is a target of the anti-terror financing laws.
Islamabad/Brussels 29 July 2002
ICG Asia Report N°36 29 July 2002
PAKISTAN: MADRASAS, EXTREMISM AND THE MILITARY
I.
INTRODUCTION
In the middle of the room is a frayed straw mat that is broken at the corners. Placed near the straw mat is a wooden bench that extends across the width of the room. Two rows of children sit on both sides of the bench. Their books are placed on the bench. They are reciting their lesson. Their bodies rock back and forth as they recite Arabic verses mechanically, without understanding, without reflecting. This is rote learning. In a few minutes, the repetition of the verses will imprint a pattern on their memory and they will move on to the next verse. This is how hundreds of madrasa students start their school day across the country.
Dr. Muzzaffar Iqbal, "Glimpses of a distorted Culture" The News1
Pakistan's madrasa system of Islamic education has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001. The debate evokes images of jihad, warfare training, terrorism and an archaic system of education. Most of these perceptions are a result of generalisations and oversimplification of a complex phenomenon. Madrasas do indeed play a role in violence and conflict but they also have a key place in Pakistan's religious and social life.
There are five distinct types of madrasas in Pakistan, divided along sectarian and political lines. The two main branches of Sunni Islam in South Asia -- Deobandi and Bareili -- dominate this sector.2 Ahle Hadith/Salafi Muslims have their own schools, as do
1 Dr. Muzzaffar Iqbal, "Glimpses of a Distorted Culture", The News, 01 May 2000, Sec. Agenda, p. 6.
2 Deoband and Bareili are towns in Uttar Pradesh, India, from where two rival Sunni movements arose in the late nineteenth century after the advent of the British Raj. Over 90 per cent of madrasas belong to these two sects.
the Shias, while the predominantly Sunni Jamaat-e- Islami (JI) shuns sectarian tags and maintain madrasas distinct from the sectarian ones.3 The religious, doctrinal differences of these schools are irreconcilable.
All provide free Islamic education, with a sectarian bias. Madrasas also offer free boarding and lodging to students who come mainly from the poorer strata of society and not necessarily from the communities they are based in. Though some middle-class and rich families also send their children to madrasas for Qur'anic lessons and memorisation, they are usually day students.
At a madrasa pupils learn how to read, memorise, recite and render the Qur'an properly. Exegeses of the holy script and other branches of Islamic studies are introduced at the higher stages of learning. Madrasas issue certificates equivalent to a Bachelor's and Master's degree. A madrasa system's university for higher religious education is called a Darul Uloom (house of knowledge). The products of the system are huffaz-e-Qur'an (those who memorise the holy book in full), qaris (those who can recite it aloud with the proper Arabic pronunciation) and ulema (religious scholars and teachers of one school of thought or the other). Their job market is predestined and narrow:
graduates will work only in mosques, madrasas, the parent religious/sectarian party and its affiliate businesses or organisations. The objective of the madrasa is to introduce Muslim children to basic Qur'anic teachings, promote an Islamic ethos in society and groom students for religious duties. It is a quirk of history that these religious schools are now associated with violent domestic turmoil and international terror.
3 Ahle Hadith/Salafi is a puritanical minority sect in Pakistan that is close to the Saudi brand of Wahhabi Islam. The JI is a political, reformist movement launched in the early 1940s by Abul Aa’la Mawdudi, the foremost twentieth century South Asian theological scholar.
Schools of religious studies and the clergy were never as numerous and powerful in Pakistan as today. At independence in 1947, there were only 137 madrasas in Pakistan. According to a 1956 survey, there were 244 madrasas in all of West Pakistan.4 Since then, even by official accounts, their number has doubled every ten years. A significant number remain unregistered.
Nobody is sure how many madrasas actually exist.5 Pakistan's minister for religious affairs, Dr. Mahmood Ahmed Ghazi, puts the figure at 10,000, though he acknowledges the problem of definition and suspects it could be higher, with as many as one million to 1.7 million students attending classes at least for short periods.6 Most of the madrasa students do not
4 Nadhr Ahmed’s 1956 survey quoted by Jamal Malik, Colonialisation of Islam: Dissolution of Traditional Institutions in Pakistan (Lahore, 1996), p. 180. The number could have been even fewer. According to other estimates in 1957-1958, Pakistan had only 119 seminaries with 4,790 regular students.
5 The ministry of education in 1995 estimated the figure at 3,906, which increased to 7,000 in 2000. Rahman, op. cit., p. 16.
6 [Replacement footnote inserted 15 July 2005.] Of the 19,921,232 [not 1,992,132 as in original text] children attending primary schools, only 3,821,000 enter into middle school. At the same time, over one and a half million children are being educated in the madrasa sector, a considerable proportion of whom continue at least through the middle school level.
Crisis Group interview with Dr. Mahmood Ahmed Ghazi for religious affairs, zakat and ushr, April 2002 . See also Economic Survey (2001-02), Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan, Chapter 11, p.2 and Pakistan Statistical Yearbook 2004, Federal Bureau of Statistics, Islamabad, 2004.
6a [New footnote inserted 15 July 2005] The arithmetical error corrected in footnote 6 was drawn to Crisis Group’s attention in the paper by Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, Tristan Zajonc, "Religious School Enrollment in Pakistan: A Look at the Data", Working Paper Series 3521, World Bank, 1 February 2005. While acknowledging this error, Crisis Group stands by its own conclusions as to the numbers of those enrolled in Pakistan madrasas, and does not accept either the conclusions or methodology of this World Bank working paper. Its figure of just 475,000 children in Pakistani madrasas, in contrast to the 1.5-1.7 million figure provided by senior government officials and madrasa administrators to Crisis Group, is based on three questionable sources: the highly controversial 1998 census; household surveys that were neither designed nor conducted to elicit data on madrasa enrolment; and a limited village-based household education survey, conducted by the researchers themselves. The claim in the working paper that madrasa enrolment has remained constant is also directly at odds with the madrasa boom. According to the Pakistan Ministry of Education's 2003 directory, madrasa numbers grew from 6,996 in 2001 to 10,430. Crisis Group also takes the view that the working paper's conclusions are flawed, flowing from its failure to examine the linkage between the boom of
complete their education or appear for the final graduation examinations. One expert has estimated that, by 1995, 20,000 of them were likely to graduate as maulanas (holders of the highest madrasa certificate) of one sect or the other, in addition to the 40,000 who had graduated since 1947.7 The vast majority of madrasa students are in the age range of 5 – 18 years. Only those going for higher religious studies are above that age.
Ministry officials speculate that 10 to 15 per cent of madrasas might have links with sectarian militancy or international terrorism. The government itself admits all these statistics are unreliable. The lack of credible data makes reform more problematic. It also underscores both the extent of official neglect and, conversely, the special treatment received by a select group of madrasas.
Recruited from the Deobandi seminaries in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan, the Taliban have drawn the international community's attention to the madrasa phenomenon. Madrasas were already seen as "supply lines for jihad" in the Soviet Afghan war during General Zia-ul-Haq's rule in the 1980s. Jihadi organisations, recruiting students from a section of these schools, are also held responsible for sectarian killings in Pakistan and the armed insurgency in Kashmir.
But violence in the name of religion neither originated at madrasas nor is their defining characteristic. Madrasas associated with jihad and sectarian and international terrorism are easily recognisable and must not be confused with those that are a normal part of Pakistani life. Both types, however, pose different degrees of threats to Pakistan's stability and international security.
Militancy is only a part of the madrasas problem. The phenomenon of jihad is independent of madrasas and most of jihadis do not come from these schools. Pro- jihad madrasas only play a supporting role, mainly as a recruiting ground for militant movements. Most madrasas do not impart military training or education but they do sow the seeds of extremism in the minds of the students.
In the foundations of the traditional madrasa are the seeds of factional, political, religious, and cultural conflict.
Based on sectarian identities, madrasas are, by their very nature, mutually exclusive, driven by a mission to
an unregulated madrasa sector and the rise of jihadi and sectarian violence. See further the exchange "Hating, Writing and Arithmetic", in Foreign Policy, July/August 2005, p.8.
7 Malik, op. cit., p. 230.
outnumber and dominate rival sects. Students are educated and trained to counter arguments of opposing sects on matters of theology, jurisprudence and doctrines.
Promoting a particular sect inevitably implies rejection of the others. So, ‘Radd' literature – the ‘logical' refutation of the belief system of other sects, aimed at proving them infidels or apostates – is a main feature of the literature produced by madrasa-based parties. In short, madrasa education and upbringing aim to indoctrinate with an intolerance of other religious systems.
All that said, madrasas do serve many useful functions.
They provide free basic literacy through Qur'anic lessons and Arabic texts. Students are also trained in theological studies, jurisprudence and polemics. The clergy they produce conduct religious rituals and ceremonies and run mosques, all essential functions in Muslim societies. All major madrasas also issue edicts on matters ranging from divorce to inheritance disputes, and people come to madrasas for religious counselling.
"Madrasas save people from a life of sin, by advising them according to the Qur'an and Sunnah", says Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair, a Barelvi scholar who is chief mufti of Sindh province.8 Homeless and displaced people are given sanctuary. Madrasas house thousands of poor people who otherwise lack access to formal education.9 Madrasas address many needs of their communities and serve an important humanitarian role.
Mosques and madrasas are thus the focal points of individual and corporate philanthropy in Pakistan.
The crux of the problem comes down the type of education the madrasa imparts. Education that creates barriers to modern knowledge, stifling creativity and breeding bigotry, has become the madrasas' defining feature. It is this foundation on which fundamentalism – militant or otherwise – is built.
Is it possible to reform this extremism by replacing intolerance through a modern curriculum? Can an austere and rigid system of teaching coexist with modern arts and sciences? The ulema running these seminaries in Pakistan and the Musharraf government agree that reforms can – and should – be carried out.10
8 ICG interview, April 2002. Muhammed Zubair is also president of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP), Sindh, the major Sunni Barelvi political party in the country.
9 For a detailed analysis of class, family and ethnic backgrounds of madrasa graduates and ulema during the 1980s, see Jamal Malik, op. cit., pp. 227-255.
10 ICG interviews with madrasa administrators, leaders of religious parties, and military officials, March-April 2002.
This apparent agreement on the introduction of compulsory modern education is, however, riddled with contradictions. Any suggestion of change in the traditional sector of Islamic instruction makes the clergy suspicious of government intentions. They are willing to teach non-religious subjects but ‘secularisation' is their worst fear, and they vow fiercely to resist it. The clergy have a long and successful history of opposing governmental reform plans and preserving the religious bias and traditional format of madrasa education. Madrasas have become the fiefdoms of their clerics, who jealously safeguard autonomy because it gives them unchecked control of finances, their students and what they are taught.
The Musharraf government's dilemma lies in Pakistan's political history, in which the military has retained state power at the expense of democracy and socio-economic development. To prolong their rule, military governments have formed domestic alliances, including with the clergy. In this process, civil society has been undermined and bigotry has flourished. For instance, madrasas multiplied under Musharraf's predecessor, Zia-ul-Haq. The military is now reaping a harvest of militancy the seeds of which were sown a quarter of a century ago.
The tussle over reforms between the Musharraf government and the madrasas should also be placed in a wider historical perspective. Every civilian and military government has formulated plans to reform the madrasa system. Yet reconciling "a 12th century worldview"11 with modernity has remained an intractable proposition. Despite state intervention, the curricula is still based on traditional literature and teaching methods. Its rationale of existence remains virtually unchanged and as emotive as ever: to defend the faith of Islam - if need be through jihad.
That is why madrasa reform is a litmus test for the credibility and political will of General Musharraf's government. To gain domestic legitimacy and external support, he has vowed to end militancy carried out in the name of Islam and religious exploitation.12 Militant fundamentalism, the government argues, cannot be checked without managing madrasas.
But the madrasa phenomenon cannot be reduced to terrorism nor understood in isolation from civil- military relations, Pakistan-India conflicts, and the larger question of separation of state and religion. The
11 Ghazi, op. cit.
12 General Pervez Musharraf, address to the nation on radio and TV, 17 October 1999, and also his speech on 12 January 2002.
Pakistani state partly shares the madrasa worldview or uses it selectively for political purposes. To institute radical reforms and bring religious education closer to mainstream education requires redefining the military's internal policies and external preferences. It is unclear whether the Musharraf government is willing to do either.
II.
BACKGROUND
Today, Pakistan does not face any real foreign threat. But from within the country, we have many threats for which we have to have a new beginning to make Pakistan strong in all respects.
General Pervez Musharraf, alluding to religious militancy, in his address to the nation on 12 January 2002.
Madrasas only came to the attention of the international media and policymakers in recent years and have received close attention after 11 September 2001, when some came to be regarded as a serious security threat. However, in Pakistan they have been a contentious political issue for three decades. During that time there has been a huge expansion in their numbers, and some have been recipients of significant government support. To assess the prospects for madrasa reform, it is essential to understand how they came to play the role they do in Pakistani society and why previous efforts at reforms have failed.
SACREDVSMODERN:ABRIEFHISTORY Sectarianism in Pakistan is the modern version of a doctrinal conflict within Islam dating to the seventh century Caliphate. The beginning of the madrasa system in the Muslim world was also, in part, a Sunni reaction to the rise of the Shia sect.13 The first chain of madrasas appeared under the rule of Nizam al-Mulk, in eleventh century Iraq. Court patronage helped these to become "an educational system with a definite organisation and purpose" which was to serve as the centre of Muslim educational activity until colonialism left the institution struggling for survival.14
Under India's Muslim rulers, madrasas were open to both Muslims and non-Muslims. Schools of mystic traditions taught ‘rational' subjects such as philosophy, mathematics and astronomy, to prepare students for court jobs, the royal bureaucracy and religious duties.15 The madrasas were, however, a personalised system of education, with itinerant students going to religious teachers for lessons in different fields. That system lacked organisation and permanent infrastructure.
13 Hisham Nashabe, Muslim Educational Institutions, Institute of Islamic Studies (Beirut, 1989) p. 9.
14 Ibid, p. 6.
15 Malik, op. cit., pp. 121-122.
The tradition survived British colonialism in South Asia largely because of a group of early eighteenth century ulema, known as the ulema of Farangi Mahall, a residential area in Lucknow, India. They developed the Dars-e-Nizami, the first standardised madrasa curriculum. Modified versions are still used as the standard course at all Sunni madrasas in Pakistan and India.16 This curriculum does not preach militancy or jihad. These reformist scholars shifted the emphasis of madrasa curricula to the rational sciences to train their pupils to become lawyers, judges, and administrators.17 Other responses to the perceived challenges posed by colonial rule to Islamic ethos, however, reinforced old conflicts and caused new divisions among Muslims at the political, cultural and educational levels. These rifts continue to destabilise Pakistan today.
BRITISHRULE:DEOBANDANDOTHER RESPONSES
The need to adjust to British rule produced two major educational movements for Indian Muslims. At one extreme was the development of English learning at Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh (UP); at the other was the madrasa of Deoband (also in UP), a movement that was inward looking and rigid.
The introduction of English education and Western sciences threatened traditional Muslim learning. As opposed to the traditionalists, progressive ulema such as those of Farangi Mahall sought to preserve Islam by introducing changes in the Dars-e-Nizami. Darul Uloom Deoband, established in 1867, however, laid emphasis on scriptural studies, ‘purification' of the belief system, and outright rejection of imperialism and its values.18 The advent of the British had endangered the core values of the clergy, and the Deobandi madrasa "became one of the responses to the power of
16 This account relies on Rudrangshu Mukherjee, "The Other Tradition", The Telegraph, Calcutta, 23 February 2002, sec editorial, p. 6. Mukherjee has summarised Francis Robinson, Spiritual Middlemen: The Ulema of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia (New Delhi, 2001).
17 Before that, Islamic education was normally divided into two categories: manqoolat or the transmitted sciences such as exegesis (tafsir), traditions (hadiths, sayings of the Prophet); jurisprudence (fiqh); and maqoolat, or the rational sciences (logic, philosophy, theology, rhetoric and mathematics).
18 See Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India:
Deoband, 1860-1900 (Karachi, 1989).
the West".19 This anti-Western trait is still a hallmark of the Deobandi school.
During the confrontation with the British, the Deobandi ulema institutionalised the madrasa system, and gave it an administrative and academic structure.
They adopted Dars-e-Nizami, but only after overturning its emphasis on non-religious studies.20 Rather than militancy and jihad, the avowed purpose of these schools was missionary, to promote faith-based knowledge. By the end of the nineteenth century, around two dozen Deobandi madrasas had been set up in Indian towns.21
The madrasa system was thus formalised under the influence of the same foreign culture it was defending itself against. In addition to Persian and Arabic, madrasas adopted Urdu, introduced examinations, printing presses, loudspeakers, textbooks, uninterrupted residence, fixed duration of study, and networks of schools.22 Since then, madrasas have followed this paradoxical pattern of resistance to state authority and modernity, coupled with a selective use of new subjects, techniques and technology.
The puritanical, anti-Shia views of the Deobandis also created fissures within the dominant Sunni Islam.
Deobandis clashed with the more flexible Sufi tradition, the shrine culture, music and multi-religious gatherings of which were at odds with Deobandi zeal to purify religion. The Muslim peasantry, however, was integrated into local cultures and Deoband fundamentalism was alien to it. The urban upper classes, too, were not very receptive to a rigorous religious culture. Thus a counter movement, "with a strong inclination towards the cult of saints", was founded by Raza Ahmed Khan of Bareli.23 Its followers (Barelvis) set up their own madrasas.
Sectarianism within Sunni Islam thus started to take shape.24
The main rival of Deoband's rigid fundamentalism was, however, the Anglophile reformist, Syed Ahmad
19 Rahman, op. cit., p. 85.
20 A.H. Nayyar, "Madrasah Education Frozen in Time" in Pervez Hoodbhoy, edit., Education and the State: Fifty Years of Pakistan (Karachi, 1998).
21 Metcalf, op. cit.
22 Rahman, op. cit. p. 85.
23 Malik, op. cit., p. 59.
24 In most of Pakistan, especially in rural Punjab and Sindh, being a Deobandi is considered equivalent to being a Wahhabi, and the term Sunni is generally used for followers of one saint or the other. Despite the mushrooming growth of Sunni-Deobandi madrasas in the 1980s, the situation remains more or less the same in traditional Pakistani society.
Khan, who instituted the modernist Aligarh school, a precursor to Pakistan's government-run educational system. This enlightened movement outdid the madrasa in outreach. Its schools inspired similar movements in other parts of British India and soon became the mainstream of Muslim education.
While employment in the colonial state sector, politics, arts and literature were Aligarh's domain, the Deobandi madrasas and their religious leadership, organised under the banner of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH),25 opposed learning or using English. That struggle between traditionalist clergy and modernist trends continues in a more intense form in Pakistan.
STRUGGLEWITHTHESTATE
Immediately after independence, Pakistan – then divided between West and East Pakistan – was split by a power struggle among elite groups. The first generation of political leaders were anglicised and Western educated but lacked secure constituencies in the new country. The bureaucracy and the military, too, were products of the British system, trained and organised along colonial lines. In Pakistan's formative years, the political elites and the civil-military bureaucracy wrestled for power but held the clergy at bay. Some leading ulema were co-opted to give the new state a symbolic Islamic identity, but by and large the clergy were excluded from the power game.
Palace intrigues, masterminded and played out by the civil-military bureaucratic elite, and an increasing military role in domestic and foreign policymaking marked that period. The country was without a constitution for nine years. A document enshrining democratic values would have aided the majority Bengalis in East Pakistan, who had little representation in the military and bureaucracy dominated by West Pakistanis. In 1954, Ayub Khan26 became defence
25 JUH is the parent organisation of the Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam (JUI) of Pakistan. The JUI is further divided into three factions, of Samiul Haq, Fazlur Rahman and Ajmal Qadri (JUI-S, JUI-F and JUI-Q, respectively).
26 Field Marshal Ayub Khan was born on 14 May 1907. He attended Aligarh University, Uttar Pradesh, India, and was selected for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, England, in 1926. He was commissioned in the Royal British Indian army in 1928. At the time of independence, Ayub Khan was the most senior Muslim officer in the Pakistan army and became the first native commander-in-chief in 1951. The army was directly involved in politics for the first time when Ayub Khan, serving as the commander-in-chief, was inducted as defence minister. He played a key role in Pakistan's entry into US-sponsored cold-war military alliances, the Central
minister in addition to commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In October 1958, the army took over government, eliminating an entire generation of politicians by disqualifying 3,500 on charges of corruption.
Much like General Musharraf, Field Marshal Ayub Khan professed liberal ideas and an anti-clerical stance.
Ayub opted to expand state control over religious institutions to cultivate a state version of modern Islam, to legitimise military power domestically, and as a rallying cry against India. Since the regime was also aligned to the U.S. in the cold war, military rulers were motivated to create a modern Muslim identity for Pakistan to counter godless communism.
In its bid to contain and co-opt the clergy, the Ayub government first attempted to regulate auqaf property – i.e. non-transferrable religious endowments.27 Almost all madrasas were dependent on this income to meet expenses. An Auqaf Department was created to regulate shrines and madrasas and bring religious institutions under state control by integrating them in the formal sector.28 Responding to the challenge, by 1959 four wafaqs - or federations of madrasas - were organised, along sectarian lines, to defend themselves against the state's attempts to trespass on their autonomy.29
Ayub Khan's reform plan included the introduction of general secular education in madrasas "to widen the outlook of Darul Uloom students and to increase their
Treaty Organisation (CENTO) and the South-East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO). On 7 October 1958 Ayub Khan imposed martial law for the first time in Pakistan. After nearly eleven years of rule, his generals forced him to resign in 1969 in the wake of public protests. General Yahya Khan succeeded him. Ayub died in 1974 in his native village in Haripur.
27 Religious endowments are usually arable land, buildings and shops belonging to mosques, shrines, madrasas, graveyards, Hindu and Sikh temples and places of other religions. These assets are non-transferable and have legal protection. The government nationalised this sector in 1960, but the outreach of the Auqaf Department is limited. Auqaf income can only be spent on mosques and the religious institution to which they belong.
28 Malik, op. cit., p. 60.
29 These are: the Wafaq al-Madaris al-Arabiya (Sunni Deobandi); Tanzim al-Madaris al-Arabiya (Sunni Barelvi);
Wafaq al-Madaris al-Shia (Shia); and Wafaq al-Madaris Al- Salafiya (Ahle-Hadith (Salafi). Almost 95 per cent of officially registered Pakistani madrasas are affiliated with these four wafaqs. The Jamaat-e-Islami created the Rabita al- Madaris, the fifth union of madrasas, in the late 1970s.
mental horizon".30 The aim was to enable madrasa students to "enter public professions" and "play their full part as citizens".31 The reforms proposed the same primary education syllabus and teaching schedule for madrasas as in the government sector. Religious content would be added but go beyond the Qur'an, hadith (sayings of the Prophet) and other traditional subjects to include issues of national importance, propagation of an Islamic nation or even of an Islamic community (ummah). "This meant the transformation of Islam from a theological concept to an ideological one".32
Ayub's madrasa reforms failed to make an impact since all religious parties, except the Jamaat-e-Islami, rejected them. Although the religious parties opposed Ayub, they lacked the domestic support to successfully confront him. It was an estranged protégé, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto 33, who was to do so.
The Zulfikar Ali Bhutto period (1972-77) is significant in the story of madrasas and extremism. Because of Ayub's anti-clergy posture and stress on modern education, madrasas had grown minimally from 1960 to 1971, when only 482 new ones were set up. The pace picked up under Bhutto, and 852 were added by 1979.34 The number has multiplied ever since.
Bhutto was Pakistan's first elected prime minister. His Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had swept the polls in West Pakistan in the 1970 national elections, but did not win a single seat in East Pakistan where the Awami League35 secured an absolute majority. The military's
30 Malik, op. cit., p. 60
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was born on 5 January 1928. In 1947, he entered the University of Southern California (U.S.) and in 1949 the University of California (Berkeley), from which he graduated with honours in political science in 1950. He went to Oxford (England) and was called to bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1953. A protégé of General Ayub Khan, Bhutto served as his foreign minister before launching his own political party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), in the late 1960s. The PPP won a landslide in West Pakistan (today’s Pakistan) in the 1970 general elections. He became president and chief martial law administrator after the secession of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971. He gave the country a new constitution in 1973 and became its first elected prime minister. Bhutto’s government was overthrown by General Zia-ul-Haq in July 1977 and he was executed two years later after a dubious murder trial.
34 Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Religious Affairs:
Report of the National Committee for Deeni Madris (1979), pp. 194-197.
35 The Awami League is now Bangladesh’s main opposition party, headed by former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed.
refusal to honour the results led to civil war, conflict with India and Bangladesh's secession. Bhutto took over a humiliated army and a truncated Pakistan in search of a new identity. Attempting to create a national ethos on anti-Indian and pan-Islamic slogans, he highlighted Pakistan's Islamic and supposed Middle Eastern identity, deploying a populist rhetoric mixing socialism, nationalism and populism. 36
As a result, the Islamic parties, which had been routed in the 1970 elections, were able to assert themselves in the writing of the 1973 constitution, which declared Islam the state religion (Article 2) and mandated the Council of Islamic Ideology to propose measures to Islamise Pakistan.37 In its preamble, the constitution pledged that the state should "enable Muslims to order their lives in accordance with the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah".
Bhutto nationalised the education sector but the madrasas were exempted and remained autonomous.38 He also attempted to co-opt the madrasas by offering to grant them the equivalence of public sector certificates and diplomas. The highest degree of the Deobandi wafaq was placed on a par with a Master's degree in Islamic Studies from a government university, provided madrasa students passed a Bachelor's level English course. Although madrasa clerics spurned the proposal, Bhutto continued to woo them.
The Bhutto government's curricula reforms for the nationalised education sector increased religious content. Arabic was introduced as a compulsory subject at middle and secondary school levels, and madrasa graduates were employed as teachers, widening their scope of employment.39 It was also then that madrasas established linkages with external sponsors.
The PPP government concluded agreements with Arab countries, most importantly Saudi Arabia, for promotion of Arabic language and Islamic literature in
36 Christele Dedebant, "‘Mughal Mania’ under Zia-ul- Haq", ISIM Newsletter 8, International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, 2002, at http://www.isim.nl/newsletter/8/dedebant.htm.
37 Three religious parties fielded 299 candidates in the two wings of Pakistan. Only 18 were elected, none in the East, now Bangladesh. See Hamid Khan, Constitutional and Political History of Pakistan, (Karachi, , 2001), p. 382.
38 178 colleges and 3,693 schools in the private sector, including missionary institutions, were nationalised. See Mohammed Waseem, Politics and the State in Pakistan, National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research (Islamabad, 1994), p. 301.
39 Rahman, op. cit.
Pakistan. New madrasas opened in areas frequented by Arab royalty, mainly the southern belt of the Punjab.40 Literature from Saudi Arabia and money for Islamic education began to flow in, which was to assume mammoth proportions during the Afghan jihad. These linkages, in particular Saudi Arabia's patronage of Pakistani madrasas, especially of the more radical Ahle-Hadith/Salafi branch, thrive even today.
The nexus between the madrasa, militancy and army originated during the Bhutto years. Afghan Islamist dissidents, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Burhannudin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud,41 took sanctuary in Pakistan after Sardar Daud's 1973 coup ousted King Zaher Shah. Reacting to his anti- Pakistan posture, Pakistan allowed them to establish bases for their struggle against Kabul.42 Army officers, including Lt. General Naseerullah Babar (the Taliban's patron in the 1990s as Benazir Bhutto's interior minister),43 cultivated the young Afghans. These dissidents, who led the anti-Soviet resistance, were mostly religious teachers (ustaad). As a result of Bhutto's policies, the early prototypes of the militant madrasa emerged in Pakistan.
The policy of accommodating the religious lobby, however, boomeranged. Instead of being co-opted by Bhutto, the clergy joined hands with their traditional ally, the military, and formed an alliance with anti- Bhutto political parties to oust him from power.44 In
40 ICG interviews.
41 All three are warlords from the Afghan jihad period.
Hekmatyar headed Hizb-e-Islami, a guerrilla Mujahiddin group. He was supported by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) even after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1988, till the Taliban forced him to leave the country. After exile in Iran, Hekmatyar returned to Afghanistan in early 2002. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of the predominantly Tajik Jamiat-e-Islami, became the second president of an interim Afghan government in 1992, which was driven from Kabul by the Taliban in 1996. He was a candidate for presidency at the Loya Jirga in June 2002 but withdrew in favour of Hamid Karzai. Ahmed Shah Massoud, known as the ‘Lion of Panjshir’ for his exploits against the Soviets and the Taliban, led the Northern Alliance until he was assassinated in September 2001.
42 Dr. Babar Shah, "The Myth of Talibanisation Strategic Studies" (Islamabad, 2000), pp. 170-73.
43 ICG interviews. Also see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia, (London, 2000).
44 According to Lawrence Ziring, even before the 1977 election campaign began, army officers were plotting to overthrow Bhutto, who was no longer seen as the ‘saviour of Pakistan’ but as a liberal populist trying to further undermine the military after the 1971 humiliation of surrendering to India in Bangladesh. See, Lawrence Ziring, Pakistan: The
the 1977 elections, Bhutto had a short-lived victory over an alliance of all major religious and nationalist/secular parties. Protests in urban centres, organised and led by the traditional clergy and a modernist but jihadi Jamaat-e-Islami, fuelled unrest.
The anti-Bhutto movement exploited religious slogans and the street power of madrasas and mosques.
Taking advantage of the unrest, the military ousted Bhutto in July 1977. After the coup, the military rewarded the religious parties, first by co-opting them in government and then by propelling them to the centre-stage of the Cold War.
Enigma of Political Development (Boulder, Colorado:
Westview Press, 1980) p. 131.
III.
THE MADRASA BOOM
The Zia period was the turning point for the madrasa system. Many aspects of Islamic militancy, which Musharraf now considers more dangerous than any
"foreign threat", were introduced to madrasas during General Zia-ul-Haq's rule (1977 to 1988).
Zia suspended the constitution and became the chief martial law administrator in 1977. He initially pledged to hold elections but reneged in 1978, promising Islamisation and accountability of politicians instead.
Having ousted a popular and elected prime minister, Zia faced considerable domestic opposition, but the military's attempts to consolidate power were assisted by events in Central and West Asia with global repercussions.
In Iran, a revolution had given a new direction to Shia fundamentalism. The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) united Sunni Arabs against Iran, and they wrestled for influence in neighbouring Muslim countries. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. and Arab states joined to help the Afghans wage a jihad against the Communists and also to contain Iran.
Pakistan's military played a key role in this ‘holy war'.
As Zia attempted to consolidate his authority through Islamisation at home and jihad in Afghanistan, the madrasa system was profoundly transformed. Zia's Islamisation and the Afghan jihad nurtured many, often mutually hostile, varieties of fundamentalism. Each Pakistani sect, its disciples a much sought-after commodity, closed ranks, and fortified itself. As a result, sectarian divisions were militarised. This militancy, and the violent sectarian conflict it inspires, is among the most serious challenges that confront the Musharraf government.
Within Pakistan, the Zia government formulated Islamic rules and regulations for every institution, opening new avenues for madrasa pupils. Sectarianism flourished. Madrasas churned out hordes of religious graduates with few skills or training for mainstream professions. This growing army of extremists in Pakistan fought the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad alongside the Arabs and Afghans and still serves the cause of jihads from India to Russia.
In the first years of Zia's Islamisation (1979-82), only 151 new seminaries were established. During the next six years, as the Afghan jihad gained momentum, 1,000 more opened. According to the last official update in 1995, 2,010 new madrasas had been
registered since 1979, raising the total number registered to 3,906.45
A breakdown by sect of official and unofficial data shows that Deobandi madrasas exceed the total of the rest combined.46 Unofficial estimates are higher but proportionally similar. Musharraf's minister of religious affairs argues that state policy has had no part in the radicalisation of madrasas or the disproportionate growth of the more fundamentalist sects: "Intellectual activity and religious education have always been the strengths of the Deobandi tradition compared to the other schools of thought, which explains their high numbers".47
Institutional strength and the tradition of spreading their message through the written word certainly helped the Deobandis against sectarian rivals. But many, including the president of Sindh's JUP, Abul Khair Muhammed Zubair, argue, "There was a clear bias under the Zia administration. Whenever a dispute would arise over the ownership of a Sunni mosque, the military government invariably favoured the Deobandis."48
Zubair cites his own madrasa as an example. Rukn al- Islam is an old Sunni-Barelvi school built on the upper storey of a mosque. Arbitration by the Auqaf Department supported the Deobandi claim to the mosque, leaving the administrator of the Barelvi madrasa in a unique position. While he administers the school, he says his prayers in a Barelvi mosque two blocks away.
Zubair also points out that this bias was evident in recruitment of khateebs (preachers) in the military.
Each of the three armed services has a Directorate of Motivation, which recruits religious professionals to lead prayers and give sermons. "The students of Deobandi madrasas were favoured over the Barelvis in the recruitment process under Zia and that trend is still visible", says Zubair.49
45 Directory of Deeni Madaris, Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan (1995). This was the last official published survey. There is no credible official estimate of unregistered madrasas.
46 Out of a total of 2,891, according a 1988 government estimate, 717 belonged to Barelvis, 47 to Shias, and the Salafi Ahle Hadith had 161. Jamaat-e-Islami and independent madrasas accounted for 97. The rest were Deobandi madrasas. Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan, Deeni Madaris Report (1988).
47 ICG interview, April 2002.
48 ICG interview, April 2002.
49 ICG interview, April 2002.
It was in the Zia years that Sunni-Shia divisions assumed an even more militant form. While Sunni sects gained recruits from Saudi patronage and the Afghan jihad, Pakistani Shias were inspired by the 1979 Khomeini revolution. As Pakistan became a battlefield for Arab-Iran disputes, Shia madrasas increased significantly. In 1983-84, there were 116, up from around 70 in 1979.50
The Ahle Hadith, the sect closest to the official Saudi creed, registered similar growth. From an insignificant minority, they established hundreds of madrasas in important commercial centres of the Punjab during the late 1970s and early 1980s.51 Since the Ahle Hadith share with the Deobandis a deep hostility towards Shias, sectarian conflict has become more violent and intricate, posing a challenge to the stability of the Pakistani state.
THEFAÇADEOFISLAMISATION
During the Zia years, the process of Islamising state and society took place at two levels. First, changes were instituted in the legal system. Shariah courts were established to try cases under Islamic law. Legislation was devised to Islamise the economy by gradually eliminating interest-based banking, making it compulsory for the nationalised banks to deduct zakat (obligatory Islamic alms), from the deposits of Muslim account-holders. A zakat and ushr ordinance was issued in June 1980, the first time that a government assumed the role of collector of religious taxes.52 An elaborate system of provincial, district and village level zakat committees was introduced.
Secondly, Islamisation was promoted through the print media, television, radio and mosques. A plethora of new ordinances was issued to Islamise public morals, the civil service, armed forces, education system, research organisations and even science and technology. The religious view, in short, dominated public discourse. In a society where many sects co- existed, it acted as an identity marker, heightening sectarian divisions and promoting sectarian conflicts.
50 Malik, op. cit., p. 198.
51 Ibid.
52 The rate of zakat, the Islamic tithe, is 2.5 per cent deducted from all bank accounts over a variable limit, according to the price of gold on the eve of the first day of Ramadhan (in 2001, the government fixed the amount at 5,600 rupees).
Ushr is levied on the yield of agricultural land in cash or kind at the rate of 5 to 10 per cent of the annual yield according to land categories (rain-fed, canal-irrigated etc).
Zia's Islamisation was meant to gain domestic legitimacy and undermine his political opposition, the moderate, mainly secular, mainstream political elite.
Hence state-controlled Islamic bodies, such as the Council of Islamic Ideology, suggested measures to proscribe parliamentary democracy as a "Western and therefore non-Islamic model".53 Ulema of all sects were given representation in a rubber-stamp parliament (Majlis-e-Shura), in 1980. Anti-India nationalism was already couched in religious symbols. Zia also used scriptural texts selectively to justify domestic policies.
Zia's Islamisation required the support of the religious seminaries for credibility. The military government, therefore, wooed Madrasas through a package of enticements. The 1979 education policy envisaged 5,000 mosque schools and established a National Committee for Dini Madaris to transform the madrasas
"into an integral part of our educational system."54
ZIA'SMADRASAREFORM
A national survey was conducted, and the report of the committee (The Halepota Report55) proposed improving the economic condition of madrasas and modernising them with the aim of eventually integrating the religious and the formal education sectors while "conserving the autonomy of madrasas".56
Other than upgrading education to bring it to par with the formal sector and creating jobs for madrasa graduates, Halepota's suggestions for improving economic conditions of madrasas included direct government financial assistance without conditions.
Zakat funds were identified as the source of government support.57 The recommended curriculum changes did not alter the domination of religious subjects but only suggested inclusion of some modern subjects at the primary, secondary and graduation levels.
The committee's recommendations could not become law because of clergy opposition. Still, Zia implemented much of the Halepota Report and also took other steps to co-opt the madrasas.
53 Waseem, op. cit., p. 387.
54 The Ministry of Religious Affairs handout of January 17, 1979, quoted by Malik, op. cit., p. 132.
55 After its chairman, Dr. A.W. J Halepota, an educator who had also been associated with Ayub Khan’s commission for madrasa reform in the 1960s. Malik, op. cit., pp. 133-134.
56 Ibid, p. 139.
57Ibid, p. 135.
The government directed the University Grants Commission (UGC), in June 1980, to draw up criteria of equivalence for degrees and certificates from the religious sector. The highest certificates of wafaq boards were conditionally recognised as an MA in Arabic or Islamiyat. Without shifting the balance of studies or changing the mediums of instruction and teaching methods, madrasas were thus upgraded to the level of the formal education system. Since these concessions were made without a corresponding change in the structure and system of madrasas, they boosted the sector and encouraged its growth across the country.
JIHADANDSECTARIANISM:THESCHOOL CONNECTION
Following 11 September, the international community has seen madrasas as schools of militancy and terrorism. Pressured to contain and reform its jihadi madrasas, Pakistani officials argue that there is no connection between madrasas and terrorism. The truth lies somewhere in between.
Two types of madrasas took an active part in the anti- Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. The first included those created specifically to produce jihadi literature, mobilise public opinion, and recruit and train jihadi forces, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami's Rabita madrasas.58 The second consisted of independent chains of madrasas, including those of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI), which opposed Zia politically but were a partner in the Afghan jihad. The Pakistani military, especially the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), funnelled American and Arab money and was responsible for training the jihadis at camps inside Afghanistan and in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Located in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan, which have close cultural, linguistic and sectarian affinity with Afghan Pashtuns, the schools of these predominantly Deobandi chains quickly espoused jihad. Their numbers increased rapidly with the influx of Afghan refugees, patronage of the Pakistani military, and Arab financial aid.59 These madrasas did not necessarily conduct military training or provide arms to students but encouraged them to join the Mujahideen inside Afghanistan.
Madrasas affiliated with the Haqqaniya chain and the JUI faction led by Fazlur Rahman also established networks for jihad in Pakistan's major urban centres.
58 Malik, op. cit., pp. 208-209.
59 Ibid.
Jihadi seminaries with Afghan and Arab volunteers spread to Karachi and later to the Punjab.
Central Asian, North African and Caucasian Muslims also arrived to participate in the Afghan war. Since many schools, such as the Haqqaniya madrasa at Akora Khattak, have old ties with the University of Medina, and Saudi Arabia had a deep interest in promoting jihad, Middle Eastern money poured into these madrasas.
As recruits grew, so did the importance of the jihadi madrasas. "We did not need the ISI; the ISI and the CIA needed us", says Samiul Haq,60 the leader of his own faction of JUI. In fact, the Taliban was founded in the seminaries of Samiul Haq and Fazlur Rahman, which graduated most of its commanders and leaders.
Even after the downfall of the Taliban, these jihadi madrasas continue to encourage recruits to join new jihads against targets as diverse as the U.S., Russia, China and India.
The jihadis of these madrasas also look inwards, fighting a jihad against sectarian rivals in Pakistan.
Splinter Deobandi groups, such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba, emerged during the Afghan jihad. With the spread of jihadi madrasas throughout Pakistan and a massive increase in their students, sectarian strife has become endemic and increasingly violent.
Jihadi madrasas have served a dual purpose for the Pakistani military: as a tool in domestic politics and a strong, active support base for its defence policy, especially against India. The Kashmir jihad began as soon as the jihad in Afghanistan ended. As in Afghanistan, the credit for pioneering the campaign for the Kashmir jihad in Pakistan goes to the JI, the modernist ally of the military.61
MODERNISTSGOMILITANT
According to jihadi folklore, the first Pakistani martyr in Afghanistan, Imran Shaheed, was not a madrasa student but an undergraduate at a government college in Karachi. He was influenced by the militant literature
60 ICG interview with Samiul Haq, Akora Khattak, March 2002.
61 The Jamaat-e-Islami is not averse to secular education.
Most of its workers and members are drawn from mainstream colleges and universities. Its power base is in the big cities among the educated classes. The JI was the only religious party that fully supported Ayub Khan’s proposals to modernise madrasa education. Compared to the orthodox clergy, the JI worldview is pegged around modernity compatible with Islam.
and politics of the Islami Jamiat Talaba, the student wing of the JI.62 At the entrance of the Jamaat's headquarters at Mansoora, in Lahore, a large billboard carries the names of hundreds of martyrs of the Afghanistan and Kashmir jihads. Few had ever been to a traditional madrasa.
For a long time, the JI was the face of the Afghan jihad in Pakistan. Unlike the NWFP-based and ethnically biased JUI factions, it professes non-sectarian politics.
With a limited but almost exclusively urban constituency, especially among the intelligentsia and through its student wings, the JI appears to have more modernists than other religious parties. It became the military's main ally during the Afghan jihad as well as domestically. As a result, money and arms poured in.
The Jamaat itself has never been a madrasa-based party. Although its student wing dominated politics at Pakistani colleges and universities throughout the 1970s and 1980s, its madrasas are mainly a product of the military-sponsored Afghan jihad. As a political party, the JI is more organised and politically active in the Punjab and Karachi, but 41 of its 107 madrasas were in the Afghan border area.63 A Jamaat official says:
These madrasas were established to aid and host the refugees. They were all victims of the Soviet aggression and it is no surprise that their children went back for jihad – we didn't have to send them. And our people also went for jihad, but only against the Communists. We refused to become party to the civil war.64
It was largely because of the younger JI cadre's involvement with the Afghan groups that weapons and violence were introduced at Pakistani colleges and higher educational institutions during the 1980s, especially Punjab University and the University of Karachi. On campuses throughout Pakistan, the student wings of rival parties continue to settle scores through coercion and violence.
Though a majority of Jamaat members are Sunnis, as was its chief ideologue Abul A'ala Mawdudi, it has not pursued sectarian politics. By and large, it has kept above the sectarian fray that broke out during the Afghan jihad years.
62 ICG interview with Abdul Sattar, a Karachi-based researcher, and others, April 2002.
63 Malik, op. cit., p. 208.
64 ICG interviews with Jamaat officials.
Sectarian conflict remains one of many violent legacies of that period. Because Saudi and Iranian literature, money and networking fuelled old but largely latent conflicts during the Afghan jihad and after, overtly sectarian and militant Sunni and Shia parties have emerged from the madrasas. All sectarian parties banned by the Musharraf government – including the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JM), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Tayaba (LeT), Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariah Mohammedi (TNSM), and Sipah-e-Mohammed – either originated at jihadi madrasas or developed their own chains.
Saudi patronage has played a particularly important role in promoting jihadi madrasas and jihadi culture in Pakistan. Because of doctrinal commonality, the Saudi government and Arab NGOs have given extensive assistance to Ahle Hadith (Salafis/Wahhabis) madrasas.
This anti-Shia sect owes its allegiance to Saudi Arabia.
Shia madrasas have also multiplied because of Iranian patronage, including the activities of the Iranian cultural centres.65 They owe their allegiance to Iran. In fact, the tradition of Shia madrasas was very weak and negligible before the 1980s.
Mainstream Sunni Barelvis have been conspicuous by their absence from militant organisations, though some also receive aid from Arab countries and are bitter rivals of the Deobandi sect.66 "Sectarian outfits abound with criminals. They are not students of religion and they have stigmatised the name of Islam", says Abul Khair Muhammed Zubair of JUP.67
All Shia and Sunni political parties, however, blame the U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agencies for
‘creating' sectarianism. "If sectarianism had been a feature of society or a collective trait, there would have been communal violence, one neighbourhood against the other. What we see are sniper shootings and targeted killings", argues Abdul Malik of JI, who claims that the U.S. and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence together sponsored Sunni sectarian madrasas in the 1980s to counter the impact of the Iranian revolution.68 This assertion, however, fails to take account of the role of the proxy battle the Arab countries and Iran were engaged in the region, focusing
65 ICG interviews, February-March 2002. For madrasa growth in the 1980s and location, see Malik, op. cit., p. 196.
66 A minuscule fringe Barelvi group, Sunni Tehreek, was allegedly involved in the killing of a prominent Deobandi scholar, Yusuf Ludhianvi, in Karachi in May 2000. Barelvi groups, as a matter of rule, are non-violent.
67 ICG interview, April 2002.
68 ICG interview, April 2002. Every religious, political and opinion leader interviewed by ICG concurred with this view.
